Hoping For Political Disaster

When Palin told Barbara Walters last week that she believed she could beat Barack Obama in 2012, it wasn’t an idle boast. Should Michael Bloomberg decide to spend billions on a quixotic run as a third-party spoiler, all bets on Obama are off. ~Frank Rich

The sheer silliness of this scenario is comforting. It’s as if everyone knows that an Obama-Palin match-up would be a disaster for the Republicans, but some try to think up some way to make speculation about Palin’s presidential chances seem relevant. Enter Mike Bloomberg.

A Bloomberg candidacy is a natural fit for this kind of speculation, because it is both just absurd enough and possibly the only thing that gives Palin an outside chance of winning via Heilemann’s imaginary outcome in which the Republican-majority House selects Palin as President. Journalists and pundits love the idea of a Bloomberg presidential run for a number of reasons. Many of them are irrationally attached to the idea that what this country needs is more “centrist” governance, when this is what we’ve had in abundance for decades. In practice, this means the worst and/or least popular aspects of both parties, and Bloomberg is almost the perfect embodiment of this. He is liberal enough on all the social and cultural issues that would make him unacceptable to much of conservative Middle America, but also not remotely progressive enough to justify third-party protest voting from the left. As mayor of New York, he has naturally been an ardent defender of Wall Street interests, which is exactly the opposite of what most Americans want their President to be. There is no constituency that objects to some aspect of Obama’s record that desperately yearns for more “centrism” and watered-down bipartisan, pro-corporate compromises.

As for Palin’s chances, I don’t know why anyone keeps talking about them. Like a Bloomberg run, a Palin presidential campaign in the general election is the sort of thing that journalists and pundits would love to see for the same reason that many NASCAR fans watch those interminable, dull races: they are holding out hope for a spectacular, destructive multi-car pile-up. Imagine how terribly earnest and serious an Obama-Daniels competition would be. That would be no fun at all. It’s much more fun to imagine one of the major parties consciously deciding to destroy itself, which is what a Palin nomination would be for the GOP. It’s been a generation since a major presidential candidate flamed out in truly awe-inspiring fashion, and many of today’s political observers are hoping that Palin can be their generation’s political Hindenburg.

In the highly improbable event that Palin wins the nomination, she would go on to lose at least 35 or 40 states in a two-way contest. The outcome of a three-way race wouldn’t be much better for her, as she would drive many people into Obama’s camp who would otherwise never go there. If Bloomberg did waste his time and money on an independent campaign and picked up any votes, I suspect that they would be coming from moderate Republicans horrified by Palin’s nomination but unwilling to vote for Obama. After the midterms, everyone has been offering Obama advice on recapturing “the center” and winning back independents and so on, but at least half of his work would be done for him if Palin became the Republican standard-bearer.

What has been interesting to see in the last couple weeks is that Palin is receiving much more respectful treatment in the mainstream press at a time when conservative media outlets are becoming more critical. Some on the right appear to be less willing to pass over her ridiculous antics in silence than they used to be. Instead of tedious justifications and loyalist excuse-making, The Weekly Standard has a review of Palin’s “reality” show that is as derisive and dismissive of Palin as anything a major conservative magazine has published about her in the last two years. The reason for this is straightforward enough: Palin was useful during the first two years of the Obama administration as a rallying point against the other party, but now the midterms are over and she has become enough of an embarrassment and liability that some of her former boosters no longer feel compelled to cover for her. Meanwhile, her detractors in the mainstream press would like nothing more than to see her run, and then crash and burn.

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28 Responses to Hoping For Political Disaster

“Imagine how terribly earnest and serious an Obama-Daniels competition would be.”

I’m with you on Palin but I think you’re misreading Obama here. In fact it was the realization that Obama is the Demo’s Palin that clarified my opinion of her.

For the D’s to legitimately renew themselves as a party, they’re going to have to talk substance on something in a way that’s clear and respects their accountability to the American people. They’re not emotionally capable of that at the moment, and may not be for a while.

Most likely they are going to fight the 2012 election cycle behind the personal mythology of Obama himself. If it turns out that way, I don’t this movie ends well for the D’s, especially if the GOP nominee is the somebody like Mitch Daniels.

“In practice, this means the worst and/or least popular aspects of both parties, and Bloomberg is almost the perfect embodiment of this.”

Amen. I think people in New York City (like Frank Rich) don’t really understand how little sense Bloomberg makes outside of New York City. Bloomberg’s utterances sound cringe-inducingly snobbish and insular if you forget he’s the billionaire mayor of NYC. He basically criticized the incoming Republican Congress as being full of people who “don’t read books” and “don’t have passports”, as if normal American voters were concerned first and foremost that the people handing money to banks and nationalizing their insurance could quote Dostoevski.

I have mixed feelings towards Bloomberg. On one hand, he has governed NYC fairly well, and with far less obnoxious behavior than his predecessor. But, it is a corporate/Wall Street city, not a city of people. His defense of banker behavior is not going to do him any favors. I have to agree with previous posters that all this talk of a Bloomberg run is really the talk of just NY-based writers.

BTW – we are just 2 weeks past Election Day 2010, and here in Chicago, we are already seeing commercials for Rahm Emmanuel’s run for mayor.

Is it difficult for you to understand the similarity? That President Obama is mostly concerned about empty atmospherics and has outsourced the actual substance of governing to other people, with important consequences for the Democratic Party and for us.

It’s difficult to understand how anyone with enough brain power to feed and dress themselves could possibly see any such similarity. Unless you’re saying Sarah Palin is also a secret Muslim Socialist who hates America?

Koz, “…outsourced the actual substance of governing to other people…” What like Congress? There is a practical limit to what a President can do with a recalcitrant lege, not to overestimate the power of Presidential “arm-twisting” and burning of “political capital”.

Anyway, back to Palin. She will not run in any serious way. She couldn’t even finish one term as Gov when Fox came a-callin’, why would she settle for a measly $400k Presidential gig with 10 times the headaches and hard work?

Palin is the first true political reality star, she’ll perpetually dance around the edges of being a true politician just enough to keep her kingmaker-Q up and lucrative appearances assured. But when it comes time to do the gritty, cold, unglamorous, retail politics in New Hampshire. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen. Unless she takes another VP spot.

No. More like Ezra Klein, Paul Krugman, Matthew Yglesias. Maybe Rahm and Axe in a pinch.

President Obama has only half bought in to the major initiatives of his Administration, which has been underlying a lot of his political problems. President Palin would have the same issues, for just the reasons you mention.

No, I’m saying that President Obama is mostly concerned about empty atmospherics and has outsourced the actual substance of governing to other people, just like I wrote before.

You know, people don’t always get things like this right, especially the first time. So we should avoid being too harsh in response. But it would be nice if one of you idiots could actually think through this shit a little bit before sending some kneejerk answer. If you actually tried to connect some dots in your own head first maybe you could start to take some responsibility for all the damage you’ve caused. There would be a radical plan.

The “Matt Yglesias is running the country” conspiracy theory is a new one on me. You’d think we’d have had some major federal action on zoning laws or barber licensing requirements or something if that were the case. I think you take blogging and bloggers a little too seriously.

Anyway, as far as Palin is concerned: she’d be operating at a serious handicap, but if things don’t improve a lot with the economy, any Republican could win.

The fact is, the Demo political establishment didn’t want the health care. They knew it was unpopular. The Demo leadership was more enthusiastic, for the sake of resume padding.

But ultimately, the real reason we have the health care bill today is because of pieces those in the links, and many others like them. The progressive left blogosphere was the Demo nerve center for the first 18 months of the Obama Administration. They’re the ones who called this play.

Let’s also note the outcome, is bad for America, bad for the Democrats, but good for the Republicans. It’s useful to bear in mind for those to like to hate on the GOP how they get into power in the first place.

“The progressive left blogosphere was the Demo nerve center for the first 18 months of the Obama Administration.”

Again, that statement is almost clinically delusional. The progressive left blogosphere in the first 18 months of the Obama Administration was chock-full of people who were angered or disappointed at virtually every damn thing Obama did. They didn’t like the bailout, they didn’t like TARP, they didn’t like the stimulus, they didn’t like health care and on and on and on.

The idea that Obama kept pushing health care reform because of what Ezra Klein or Matt Yglesias blogged is nuts.

Obama baffles people like Koz because he puts policy ahead of politics. Regardless of whether or not some kind of health care reform was good for the country, Obama _believed_ that it was good for the country. And so he went about getting it done in a messy, compromising, democratic, and ultimately effective way. The “optics” and “atmospherics” were something he tried to manage, and he didn’t do the best job of it. But the policy, as in Afghanistan, finance reform, fair pay act, etc. was carefully thought out and implemented in what he believed to be the best interest of the country.

He has a fairly centrist ideology and a conservative temperament, which is why he didn’t raise the progressive war banners and launch an assault. The fact that movement conservatives think he is “radically leftist”, socialist, marxist, etc merely demonstrates that they absorb and regurgitate propaganda with reflexive predictability.

“And so he went about getting it done in a messy, compromising, democratic, and ultimately effective way.”

Uhhh, no. If there was ever a circumstance where the popular opinion could have forced its way into the gears of the political machinery, there would be no health care law today. That’s why the D’s had to use their grab bag of gimmicks, deem and pass, Christmas tree amendments, pass it to find out what’s in it, and all the rest.

There was a diplomat, I think, who joked that the practice of democracy among the Communist parties in Africa was pretty simple, “One man, one vote, once.” Obviously the Obama Administration isn’t that bad, but is introducing the same sort of problems.

This is a contributing factor to the START business, which is how I entered these threads in the first place. Because the Administration has poisoned the well for all of us, the ability to stop an Obama Administration policy is not an opportunity to conceded lightly.

“But the policy, as in Afghanistan, finance reform, fair pay act, etc. was carefully thought out and implemented in what he believed to be the best interest of the country.”

If I were an Obama partisan I would hope this isn’t so. If these are his thoughtful policies, I’d hate to see what his reactive ones are.

“A. You’ve never read anything Klein, Krugman and Yglesias have written or heard anything they’re said.”

This is a load of crap. It’s especially hilarious in this case because at the same time you were writing this, I was posting direct cites to Yglesias and Klein.

President Obama either can’t won’t acknowledge the distance between the things he wants to accomplish and the policies he puts in place to do it which is a key element of accountability. Depending on the circumstances, people won’t necessarily blame the particular politicians in power for bad times. But they do need straight answers, and President Obama doesn’t have them or won’t give them.

“If there was ever a circumstance where the popular opinion could have forced its way into the gears of the political machinery, there would be no health care law today.”

Every single poll taken, EVERY SINGLE ONE, has found that most of the individual parts of the health care reform bill are wildly popular with the public. The only one that’s truly unpopular is the individual mandate, which is necessary to make all the popular provisions possible and was originally a Republican idea.

Oh, and old people also don’t like that health care reform will make a real effort to control skyrocketing Medicare and Medicaid costs. I thought controlling entitlement spending is something conservatives support?

“Every single poll taken, EVERY SINGLE ONE, has found that most of the individual parts of the health care reform bill are wildly popular with the public.”

First of all, this is just an assertion and I don’t necessarily believe it. More important than that, is your apparent belief that such a thing would help your case if it were true.

The Obama bill is not a group of “individual parts”. It is a law that mandates and specifies this or that, all of which become law in toto. And about the law in toto, the American people have made their feelings known perfectly well. The only way to pass such a bill is conclude that when push comes to shove what the American people want doesn’t matter.

In fact, if you concede that somewhere over the rainbow the American people have some right to self-determination, the idea that this or that individual part of the bill is popular just makes matters worse. Because the one thing we can definitively state is that there’s no way to mold “the popular parts” and/or the parts that the liberal Demo base insists on into a comprehensive whole that the American people support or at least acquiesce to.

We know this because the Demo establishment spent a year trying. Starting from April 2009 in committee, to March 2010 the program design changed a hundred times. All the marketing from Congress, the liberal think tanks and the Administration, could force the American people to like something that they don’t like. Therefore, all the marketing since then has been about how they really like it anyway or what they want doesn’t matter.

“I believe comments like the above are technically defined at “eating your own poop crazy”.”

You can write shit like this think you’ve fought to a draw on the strength formulating a response. But it really doesn’t work this way. Some of us can connect the dots, and some of you can’t. It gets pretty clear pretty quick who is who.

“First of all, this is just an assertion and I don’t necessarily believe it.”

Poll results are not assertions. They are facts. You can check them, if you like. But you didn’t, because your entire worldview is built on disregarding any information that doesn’t conform to what you wish to be true.

And I can’t believe any conservative would ever say that what the populace wants is the overriding issue in all matters of policy. For example, the public looooooves the welfare state and if given a choice between cutting government programs or raising taxes on rich people, I dont’ know of a single time when the people have wanted the former over the latter.

“You can write shit like this think you’ve fought to a draw on the strength formulating a response.”

No, I can write shit like that because you’re a buffoon spouting nonsense. Trying to talk politics with you is like debating cosmology with someone who thinks we all live on the back of a giant turtle.

For pity’s sake, Matt Yglesias is running the Obama Administration? There are White House interns who have more policy influence than Yglesias!

And my previous post should have ended with “wanted the latter over the former”.

“Poll results are not assertions. They are facts. You can check them, if you like.”

Yeah but you didn’t cite any polls. Or, even specify exactly what subject such polls are supposed to survey. For example, people have been talking a little bit about one provision in the bill where all business are required to file 1099 forms with the IRS for each vendor they do over $600 worth of business in a year. It would suprise me very much if there were a multitude of polls favoring that.

There is another provision where young adults are eligible to remain on their parents’ coverage until the age of 26. It would surprise me less to see a poll supporting that. But even if there were a substantial majority that supported that position, it doesn’t mean that those who favored it actually expected to get that, or care very much one way or the other if they did.

Let’s also note that there is a substantial difference between favoring or disfavoring some policy, and being willing to acquiesce to it. Most people are willing to acquiesce to vast majority of government policies, whether they agree with them or not. It’s a very important development when a substantial group of people, heretofore largely apolitical, refuses to acquiesce to a major government initiative.

All of which illustrates why, allowing that polls are important, the state of public opinion relative to this or that is not limited to public polling. There’s also the election returns, the state of public debate on the subject, and perhaps most importantly, the reactions of the political class after hearing from their constituents.

In the case of the health care bill, all of these things including but not limited to public polling, led anybody paying attention to conclude that the Obama health care bill was manifestly unpopular, and was internalized as such some time ago. This is a little bit complicated but not horrifically so. If for some reason you can’t follow along, it’s not anybody’s fault but yours.

I’m sorry to be late to this, so my post probably doesn’t matter, but Bunge is right: the individual pieces of the bill matter as much as the bill as a whole, in this case. In a normal world Koz would be right, but the reason anyone is making the argument that the individual pieces are popular in the first place is because of the public perception that the whole is way more than the sum of its parts. This perception is due in large part to the unpopularity of made-up provisions that are not even in the bill but which a lot of people believe are there. So the “unpopularity” of the bill (let’s call it a law now) is based on something that isn’t the law at all. This is what Pelosi meant when she said “pass the bill to see what is in it” — this means “you’ll see that the contents of the bill aren’t what has been sold to you by the loony right to scare you.”